handmedown heart
by Kaitsurinu
Summary: It isn’t true that Aoyagi Ritsuka loves the man seven years his senior best when he’s broken down. He loves him——he supposes that what he feels when he sees Agatsuma Soubi on the hardwood floor of his empty apartment. Love, and so much pity.
1. one

hand-me-down heart

It isn't true that Aoyagi Ritsuka loves the man seven years his senior best when he's broken down. He loves him—yes, with the lump in his throat at that thought—he supposes that what he feels when he sees Agatsuma Soubi on the hardwood floor of his empty apartment this night. Love, and so much pity. Sympathy, too, but pity, that his heart has seemed never to be his. Before it was Seimei's, and now that hand-me-down heart is his, but never Soubi's own.

That day, Ritsuka had attended his first day of the eighth grade, and Yuiko had hugged him so hard he thought he might have bruises from her bracelet and necklace pressing against him. Yayoi had tugged her off him, looking secretly possessive, and given him a hug, too. It'd been a good day, and they'd stayed out late, celebrating Yayoi's birthday. All the while, watching Yayoi's face span out into a chuckling grin past the candles, Ritsuka had been so happy, and yet so anxious.

All summer, he'd been with Soubi. This was going to be their first day completely separated in what seemed like immeasurable time. And secretly, too, like Yayoi's desiring glances at Yuiko's candy-pink hair gleaming in the sun as she danced, he'd worried. He knew that when he left the apartment that morning, he did not walk alone. Soubi shadowed him to the school. Ritsuka didn't blame him. He'd probably stashed his heart in Ritsuka's backpack when he'd been filling it with school supplies the night before, while Ritsuka could barely keep his eyes open in his little bed, just to have the excuse to follow him, to get his heart back.

He remembered the thin enthusiasm on Soubi's face as he'd packed, something he dredged up just to reassure him. He'd really been so unhappy he didn't even touch Ritsuka before going to his own bed. In the morning, he'd followed, and said nothing, not even letting on that he knew Ritsuka was aware of him. That worries Ritsuka even now.

The windows are drawn shut. Typical of him, to want such darkness to surround him. He's such a fool. Doesn't he know he's only going to feel worse in the dark? It won't help a thing to mope, and it's going to burn the floor if he leaves all those cigarettes lit and half-burning there. He shouldn't mope, _anyway_. He told Soubi he was going to be gone until the night fell, and he'd wake him to say goodnight when he came home.

Ritsuka watches the orange glow of the current cigarette catch on the thin, blonde strands of his hair. It makes Soubi glow at the edges, like one of his paintings. Ritsuka puts his backpack on the chair by the door and stands still, listening.

He could say _hello. _What a jerk he can be.

"Hey, why are you sitting here in the dark?" Ritsuka asked. "Do you want me to turn on the light?"

Soubi doesn't answer him, but his body tightens to the sound of his voice, and his shoulders hunch some more. Ritsuka almost makes a comment about ruining his posture, almost commands him to turn around and answer him, since that's usually what he likes the most, but he seems to curl away from him. It's so fickle, when he was stalking him this morning, as if they hadn't lived together for a year since they'd committed his mother.

That had been the night he knew that Soubi _was_ all he had, and let him carry him to his home even while Ritsuka cried and begged Soubi to take it back, let his mother go, to bring him back to her.

He'd done a lot for Soubi. So he feels he should deserve an answer when he asks such a simple question. It is the lack of lighting, and the fact that Soubi has no shirt that lets Ritsuka know that something is wrong. Perhaps he really _did_ put his heart in Ritsuka's backpack. And had he lost in the journey, or squished it with his new textbooks?

"Soubi," he says, "what's wrong? Is it because I was out late?" When he approaches Soubi, the unforgettable red of his scars seem to grin on his back. The darkness does nothing to hide them, and they seem to be enjoying themselves as Soubi hunches, stretching them further into wicked little smiles. Something _did_ happen. Because it's a cool night and Soubi only sits shirtless and smokes on especially bad days.

A couple of times, Soubi would even put the cigarettes out on his back, for some terrible reason he could not produce when Ritsuka held his wrists and stared into his face, questioning and pitying all at once. He still doesn't answer.

"Soubi." Ritsuka does not put hesitation in his voice, but neither is it forceful. "Do you want to tell me what happened?"

"Not really," comes the answer. Even though it is not what he wanted to hear, at least it's the truth—or hopefully, it is. Ritsuka has long been trying to rid him of his unnecessary lying, but it's worse than quitting smoking. "It's okay."

"Stupid idiot," Ritsuka murmurs, and stands behind him. "You don't have to lie to me, Soubi."

It must be the first time in so long that truth comes first, before a smokescreen of vague words or conversations rerouted by skin, and, without much fight over it, he relinquishes his hold over himself. He drops his hand after shakily putting a cigarette to his mouth and touches the floorboards in nervous circle, and the scar grin on his back seems pleased, flushed red. "I… had a bad dream," he murmurs, and Ritsuka puts his fingers in his bowed hair.

"About my brother?" he asks in a quiet voice, and is genuinely surprised to feel it shift from side to side.

Soubi continues to stare distractedly at the floor. The unwarming glow of the cigarette glows in his dark eyes and paints his straw-colored hair a half-there orange red. Ritsuka asks for just a little more by running his fingers through what hair he can reach, and petting his lowered head. He wonders more and more these days just how his brother had treated him. All these traps and locked doors and holes in the floor he'd left in Soubi are painful for them both, but still… Ritsuka owns his own heart, but Soubi can't seem to put it back where it belongs.

He stops petting Soubi, though he seems to lean into the gesture, and instead crouches next to him, sharing with him this silent consult with the little bonfire of cigarette butts.

"It was about… my _sensei_…"

"At the school for _sentouki_?" Ritsuka has to lean closer to his mouth, hidden by his sheets of hair, to hear him properly. Soubi's voice crawls back into his throat in terror all of a sudden, and he sobs, trying to push more words out. Ritsuka moves instantly to catch him in a hug, his arms now long enough to embrace him completely. He's surprised by the force of tears that come from his fighter now, and especially by the sensitivity of the scars of his back. They burn like he's just received them, and Ritsuka wonders if he's about to learn where they come from.

"I…" Soubi chokes and Ritsuka hushes him, kissing his shoulder and just laying his head there.

"You don't have to say yet, either, Soubi," he eases him. "It's okay."

The fighter drops the cigarette from his mouth and watches it lose its spark and the smoke leave him. He breaths heavy from his mouth, little tears making his nose clog and his vision burn. "Aa," he mutters.

Ritsuka smiles, and he feels it on his skin. "You should go to sleep, Soubi. Do you want me to go with you?" The fighter turns his head to rest it on Rituka's shoulder as well, his body twisting uncomfortably to snatch this little bit of comfort, and his heartbeat throbbing in his throat. He nods.

"Okay, now," Ritsuka nudges him gently to his feet. He's grown in the past year, and it's not as heavy when Soubi leans on him.

Though his heart is still heavy, it's not quite the heaviest part of his body anymore. He can feel the poison of the nightmare already fading, and he wouldn't be surprised, with a barely-contained smile, if Soubi tries his old, slightly lecherous tactics by the time they get him dressed and under the covers. That part of him, at least, is still his own, the way he teases Ritsuka with kissing between his ears.

But when he earns all of Soubi's heart, he's going to put it back into him and make him what he should have been all along.


	2. two

The next few mornings go dismally. Dismal in the sense that they seem to go as they always have, tainted by some unseen and unheard thing that makes Soubi either mope tirelessly, thus making Ritsuka harsh and flustered, or endow him with an endless sorrowful gaze that follows him to every corner of the house, thus making Ritsuka exasperated and exhausted. But, the forth day after sharing a bed for the night, with two long arms around his ribs and blonde hair in his mouth, Soubi's mood lifts as inexplicably as a sparrow lighting off an empty windowsill. Ritsuka is sitting up in bed staring at the far wall when he realizes this.

It's a Saturday morning, and Soubi has long been at his Art History class. But he's left something that makes both Ritsuka's ears twitch.

Since moving in, after being forcibly evicted from his old life, the empty space of Soubi's apartment has filled a little. There's a table, and a filled bookshelf, and Ritsuka's computer. And there are now two beds. For, as much as Ritsuka can see the want in his eye, the unbending compulsion to soothe his woes with the younger's skin, he won't push him beyond any of his limits. There are times when Ritsuka wonders how he can avoid buckling under such emotion. But the bed isn't far, close enough for a few strides to take him to Ritsuka's bedside in case of danger or nightmare.

The other new addition is a little whiteboard on the far side of the room, which grocery lists and memos and sometimes project due dates get scribbled. Ritsuka tilts his head, seeing something else there now.

In Soubi's half-flowy, half-intelligible writing, he has written, '_Good Morning, Ritsuka. Be home sometime around 3:OO. Don't miss me too much.'_ And beside it, a little black cat doodle, lounging on a little pile of blankets. On it's little, curving tail, there sits a butterfly, drawn in blue marker, rather than black.

He never writes on this, which is what Ritsuka ponders as he gets up and showers, somewhere around noon. Returning a few minutes later, rubbing his ears with a damp towel, he stands before it, staring. His ears twitch cutely, then settle back on his head in puzzlement. He plods off to the kitchen to dredge something up for himself, seeing as Soubi isn't home yet to cook and his stomach roils gently in hunger.

But, even with a little bowl of ramen clutched and warming his hands, Ritsuka seems drawn back to the board and the energetic little doodle. After such a breakdown, this just doesn't seem natural. _He even told the _truth_. He was really upset… this is just strange of him, to be okay so abruptly. _He slurps the noodle hanging from his mouth until the tip flicks a hot drop of broth onto his nose. He rubs it away absently, and wanders away from the board.

But, walking back to the kitchen with the emptied bowl proves too much temptation, and he stops again. Staring.

"What is it?" he wonders to himself. "What happened to make him so happy?" _That _answer seems too misty, too far out of reach, and he finds himself asking, _what is bothering me about this picture, anyway?_

Not knowing why this has happened, comes the immediate response of his instinct, and, added—not knowing just _how_ you made Soubi happy, not knowing what to repeat.

The curiosity and dread of never finding such an answer push him to finally abandon the staring match he's had with this written message and seemingly harmless rendering of fighter and sacrifice and he sits on the bed with a new book. It's about the importance of dreams to the reparation of the psyche—a word Yuiko had cutely choked on when Ritsuka had described it to her, and she'd eagerly tried to repeat. He reads it with cigarette glow like a fireplace and the grin of red scars in mind.

At almost exactly 3:00, the door opens and Ritsuka startles slightly on the bed. Through the passage of time, he's relaxed onto his stomach, with the book propped against the foot of his wooden bed frame, pages open to the air and occasionally tickling his nose. With a twitch of dark fur, both tail and the tips of his ears, he looks over his shoulder. Soubi stands long and lean in the doorway, elongated by the wide smile he holds and the clean, flowing lines of his hair.

"Hello, Ritsuka." He almost _breaths_ joyfully, and Ritsuka is immediately cautious. Such happiness is rare, but not to be crush carelessly, either. So, with delicacy the utmost importance, he turns to face Soubi and sits up with a twitch of an ear.

"Soubi."

Ritsuka watches the cool ocean blue of his eyes go round and young, bright even beneath the shine of his glasses, the same kind of breathless light he saw for a moment over the exchange of a key and once again when he'd come to Soubi's bed one night after leaving home, crying. And, with the tiniest, tiniest swell, he wonders, _Will it stay? Is he finally happy?_

But what has changed?

He can barely contain himself—but, of course, in his very level and ranchero way. The odd angle of his limbs alerts Ritsuka to the fact his arm is twisted behind his back, the red sleeve of his black letterman's jacket made even more conspicuous by its contrasting tones. "Are you ready?" he asks mysteriously.

Ritsuka has to cinch his brow. "Ready for _what?_" he asks in return, pouting. "Why don't you just tell me? And why are you acting so—" He stops and blinks forcefully in surprise.

"His name is Cho," Soubi purrs, and holds the hidden hand, and the gray and white kitten cradled inside his spidery fingers, aloft for him to see. It lifts its head and in a sweet and irresistible tone meows a little squeak of a call. "Or rather, if you like the name as well." He stands there, like a child giving a parent a homemade gift, like a boyfriend with a rose of his own fashioning, and the expression is nearly a match.

"_Soubi_," Ritsuka peels out of himself. He's torn between being soft and cautious and measured about this—Who's going to take care of him when we're both gone? Shouldn't you have talked to me about this first?—and jumping off the bed to greet it, tail curling.

The fighter pulls the kitten closer to him as it lifts a twitchy, eager paw and attempts to walk off the warm ledge holding him. The anxious energy is not wasted, as he comes to Ritsuka and smiles at him. Not too wide, not a grin. But it's a real smile.

"Soubi," Ritsuka says again, and squeaks as Soubi lets the toddling creature pounce down and land on the younger's lap, latching onto the front of his shirt with his tiny, emergency claws. Soubi kneels down to begin playing with the kitten as it sat, curious and all eyes to the world, on his knee.

"Wha… why did you do this?"

Soubi puts his chin on Ritsuka's knee so the kitten can swat it and crouch, glaring in shock at the movement of his long, tempting hair. "I love you," is the first response, unbidden, un-holdable, and then, with a little murmur of laughter as he stares into the kitten's blue-green eyes, "I wanted to get you something, Ritsuka. You gave me something, and I thought maybe you needed someone who could take care of you when I was gone."

"A kitten?" Ritsuka asks, and blue eyes flash up at him over the thin, round glasses. "How could a kitten like this watch over me?"

Soubi's rare happiness pushes another rarity from him—unbidden truth, and maybe a little sincerity in his usual declarations of love, as well, which makes Ritsuka's chest ache in ways he won't understand for years to come. "A kitten watches over me," he returns, and the smile fades in lieu of gentle waiting, hoping that Ritsuka will take to the compliment and not shy away from his offering.

Not leave it at his feet like something unwanted and unneeded.

Ritsuka sees this written on his face more clearly than if he'd said it. Soubi always has to let the truth out with little veils, little misread masks when he speaks, anyway. His eyes do not have such a vocabulary of deceit. He hesitates a moment, then speaks, refusing to flush. "But… why didn't you tell me?"

The rarity in Soubi's face is slowly becoming sublime. Ritsuka sees, as well as truth, relaxation settle into his shoulders and let them settle, making his mouth seem even happier. "I wanted it to be a surprise. Wasn't it?"

"Yes—" Then, a flash of remembrance. The whiteboard with its doodle draws his attention. "Was that what your drawing meant, then?" He asks this to Soubi's rising figure, his chin lifting to maintain eye contact, as the older stands from his knees enough to take Ritsuka's face in both hands.

"Yes." It's emphatic. It's happy. Soubi can't resist it, but pulls Ritsuka closer and doesn't feel resistance to kiss him, but even the slightest (reluctant, happy, exasperated) rustle of eagerness.

That is, until Cho decides to leap after the trailing gold of Soubi's hair, misses, and tumbles to the floor to emit a mother-wail of a cry.


	3. three

Thunder takes its fingers and digs them deep into the sleeping night and rends it apart in a primordial flash of bone white and bone shaking roar. It is this destruction of the heavens, and every dying cry it gives, that Ritsuka finds himself again lying awake and listening. The blankets are mussed and stovetop hot around him, kicked away in a ragged corona from the humidity. His chest falls rapid and shallow to the beat of thunder peals, as they seem to press down on him every time his mind drifts into sleeping colors. The summer heat is suffocating, and the noise is deafening.

For once, it would be nice not to have ears, to not have everything sounding in terrible double time. The thunder, for one, but also to forget the pitiful and unending mother-cries from Cho in the other room, still pining after his mother and the puppy-pile of his brothers and sisters. But how would Yayoi react should he stroll into class without them? Yuiko would _not _be able to hold her curious tongue, Ritsuka thought with a thin smile—she might not even understand what an absence of ears and a cute feline tail meant. And what shade of jealous pink would Shinonome-san turn?

When the speculation turns to a head of tarnished-gold hair in his memory, what would be his specific reaction, the thunder peal and the sound of footsteps falling into his room pull him sharply away from the pit of his stomach, now currently somewhere in his toes. He jolts from his misty, half-sleeping state and looks over his shoulder in the darkness. It's not hard to recognize the figure there as Soubi, of course, but what makes Ritsuka's brow furrow and his bottom lip jut is the cause.

"Soubi," he drawls, "it's too _hot_ tonight. Go to sleep by yourself, okay?"

"Can I just stay in your room?"

Ritsuka pushes himself up onto his elbows and watches Soubi carefully, scanning him for hints of ulterior motive in the wispy bun of wheat-colored hair, and the low, tired lines beneath his bare eyes. He scowls wanly back. "Fine," he puffs in relapse, "but don't be touchy-feely, please. I can barely sleep as it is." He flops back onto the mattress.

"Yes," Soubi answers, moving forward like a ghost, as white as the sheen on his glasses in daylight, and walking as if he'd crumble to act too quickly. Ritsuka presses the side of his face into his pillow and watches the waistband of his striped pajama pants move into view, then watches Soubi sit silently on the floor beside his bed. The lightning flashes catch the delicate fly-aways of blond and turns bone white for a moment.

Ritsuka sighs through the following words of thunder, the glass blue of Soubi's eyes glowing from the remaining lightning flash. "You wanted to say 'Master,' again, didn't you?"

Soubi's smile is like bared bones, a little face pulled from a bag to try and placate Ritsuka as words he will not want to hear come from his mouth. "Yes," he admits. It's an ugly truth, and unattractive fact, but it's not a veil or an outright lie.

Ritsuka has been trying to decide if it's better, the lie or the uninviting truth. It's not more comfortable, that's for sure. His lips curl unhappily together for a moment and his eyes close.

"Ritsuka."

Of course, Soubi has other ways of reaching the heart of Ritsuka other than the alternately hollow and sometimes unbearably young glow of his eyes, eyes that were eternally blue and symmetrical, no matter the pain in them. There's a tenor to his voice that seems to pull every cord in him, tugging him like the sunray tugs the gasping flower. They vibrate, glow blue, in his imagination, and Ritsuka then imagines Soubi sitting at a harp with blue strings and tilting his head at it in confusion.

He can't play a chord to save his life, he's said once.

When he smiles mysteriously to himself, Soubi speaks again. "Ritsuka." He awaits the eye contact to say more, only echoing his pained, quiet plea. Ritsuka half-grimaces, his mind still curling around the inviting image, a blond head falling further to the side, glasses glinting, face puckering in curiosity. He wants to dream, is ready to dream—but Soubi's voice and the thunderclap finally draw him back to the flashing night.

"Yes, what?" he mutters.

Soubi doesn't answer, and Ritsuka sighs. He pops one, singular eye open and frowns. "What?"

Soubi glances down, then back at Ritsuka, trying to mask the color of shame in his eyes, so bare and faint, but deeply blue, when he says, "I…"

Maybe it's been the long, jarring night of shifting at each roar of thunder and kicking uncomfortably at the hot surfaces everywhere, even in his own body that makes Ritsuka almost scoff again, impatient at this drawn out, string-like way of talking. Humidity is not something to trifle with in his opinion, and Soubi is far too fickle on such a sweltering, sleepless night. "You _what_?" he groans, only half-wanting the answer. Sleep seems so far away, so distant, and reality is like breathing in molasses.

Hesitating for a moment to nervously clench his lips, Soubi asks, "Ritsuka… I want to lay in your bed."

And for once, it's not a request for a command, a way to indulge the perverse traps in his mind and body laid so long ago that torment him even now. It's not quenching the abusing need to be abused or used, to satisfy his nervousness with pain, but something little and pure. Of course, his truth may be pure, but that doesn't mean Ritsuka doesn't make a cautious face anyway, wondering if he intends to keep him even long kissing him and harassing him.

"I just want to _sleep_," Ritsuka specifies in a half-dour tone, but slides over on the mattress.

Soubi blinks, and for a moment, as lightning curls down to the earth in a death-burst of white, he can see the smile almost perfectly. Ritsuka sighs, but lets him crawl into the mussed sheets with no resistance. Soubi settles his head onto the pillow, facing his younger in silence, not touching him in the least.

And when no hand seeks shelter in his hair or no joyful goodnight kiss descends up on him, Ritsuka squints at him and clutches at the mattress in suspicion. Perhaps it's truly not Soubi in his bed. A stranger fooling him and waiting to strike. "What's wrong with you?"

Soubi smiles and sighs gently. He rubs his face into the pillow like a child nuzzles the fur of a new pet and Ritsuka watches his body loosen, abandon it's taut anxiety, and crumple comfortably into a sleeping position. All he does to touch Ritsuka is reach out and lazily loop a few, willowy fingers with his. Then his nearly sleeping again, his eyes settling shut, so small and delicate without the round frame of his glasses. "I was just afraid. But I'm alright now…" he murmurs. "Thanks."

Now the curiosity is welling again—that which makes him still remember the doodle, the way he cries and smokes alone some nights—and Ritsuka is perplexed again. He reaches up with his free hand and moves away the long, wheaten tresses that obscure his face. "It's fine…" he reassures him, brushing his hand down his cheek as he pulls away. "But what were you afraid of, Soubi? Did you have another nightmare?" He asks the latter with considerable more weight, stopping to squeeze his fingers.

But Soubi only sleeps and smiles, pushing one final response out before apparently welcoming dreams claim him. "I don't like storms…"

The splits of lightning and the responding laughter of electricity that was thunder now wanes, quietly walking off into the distance, but still occasionally lighting a corner of the room in blue-white. The humidity that had forewarned it also stalks quietly off, leaving the windows open to the soft, cool breezes that would accumulate into a chilly night in a little while. That means he'll soon be enveloped in Soubi, clinging for warmth in his sleep, but for now, Ritsuka only watches him.

"Weirdo," he mutters. "You could have just said so."

Ritsuka cannot help but eagerly turn his ears, both sets, pricked intently, when the storm-noise fades and he can hear the slow, low, loveable breath roll in and out of Soubi's half-parted lips. He blinks for a moment, surprised at the smallness of the sound—considering his battle-ready voice, all strength and confidence—then smiles and closes his eyes. So, the ears are somewhat useful yet.

He won't always hear Soubi in double-time. Best to enjoy it now, as the thunder fades.


	4. four

"No, Soubi, I don't have the time! You know I have to go to therapy after school today!" Ritsuka issues in irritation, quickly finishing the last, crumbling bites of breakfast as the bright sunshine pouring in serves only to remind him of his schedule gaining the upper hand. "Don't you have work to finish for your review? You can do _that!_ I'll be back by dinner—"

Soubi stands at the other side of the table, separated by an empty plate and the saltshaker. Though there is not yet a displeased look, the disappointment is taking hold, slightly slumping the handsome frame of his shoulders. "Don't you want to go out?" he asks. Ritsuka hates that it's with that beguiling, half-childish way.

There's simply no time to pin him with a sharp look that might have withered that tone. He's stuffing his homework into his backpack, the clean edges wrinkling annoyingly, and slinging it onto his back as he goes towards the door. "Soubi—it's not about _that_," he says in a huff.

"Wait."

Finally, he spins to look at him. He's got the door ajar, ready to dash down the stairs to the street, and from the street to the school gates, where no doubt Yuiko will be twirling her candy-colored hair, Yayoi dancing and preening at her side. It's so late, he hates being late. "I hate being late," he blurts out. "Just spit it out, Soubi."

He does. And there is no scraping of words, no snatching at veils to cover truths. Of course, this is a much more innocent, more easily bared thought. "I want to spend time with you, Ritsuka." He's said it so many times before, issuing it with a smile or turn of phrase, but that makes it only doubly true now—only made Ritsuka's heart keen honestly and deeply. But as cute and youthful as Soubi appears in the morning light, watching him scurry to leave behind the gleam of his glasses, Ritsuka can't break an appointment.

Although he wants to.

"Soubi," Ritsuka sighs, hesitating in the doorway, his toe wedging it open. He looks up from behind his violet sheet of bangs and can't help but grin regretfully. "Come here, then."

The fighter blinks in surprise. He had expected a sling of upset words and Ritsuka's quickly disappearing figure to follow, snapping at him not to follow. This order is much more pleasurable. He quickly obeys and stops in front of his sacrifice, noticing that Ritsuka's ears now reach the tip of his chin. "Yes?" he asks.

Ritsuka reaches up and tugs his collar until he bends into the touch, kissing him with a smile. Soubi shudders happily into it, letting his eyes fall close and his glasses nudge into the bridge of his nose. Upon parting, their lips separating with a talkative smack, he remains bent towards Ritsuka, watching him intently. Waiting for more. He can see it, in the flush of his skin and shape of his eyes. He untangles his fingers from Soubi's clothes, then reaches up and holds his face in a way he's grown to habitually do.

"Ritsuka—"

"I know, Soubi," he interrupts. He fights a smile as he turns away, fights the bubbling of emotion Soubi's unblemished smile incites. "You love me."

Soubi doesn't answer more than to yank him forward and push another kiss to his cheek, the eagerness to touch him and return the affection burning from his fingertips. Then he lets him go and issues a calm, "See you later." He turns and wanders back into the house, buttoning his shirt as he travels to the living room, where Cho's cute cries of exploration can now be heard.

Now it is Ritsuka who has a hard time tearing himself away from the house. But he does so anyway, skimming quickly down the stairs to the ground floor, rounding the corner, dust whirling up from his heel, and dashing towards school with a renewed vigor. Shinonome-_sensei_ will not know how to translate the unexpected grin that Ritsuka will wear that day.

--

Katsuko-_sensei_ also has noticed a distinct upswing in Ritsuka's demeanor since their last visit, but she remains smiling gently, absorbing his carefree narrative as it jumps and flits youthfully around the room and doing little more than scratching notes occasionally. For a year, Ritsuka has been frail and brittle for some obscure reason, shying away and lashing out at sensitive spots that had never been there before. It almost seemed as if she'd lost all progress made with him, as if someone had stumbled over him and accidentally crushed his spirit with their shoe. A grin and a loose, unworried tongue is a wonderful sign of progress.

"Oh, and we have a new kitten, too, Katsuko-_sensei_, did I tell you that?" Ritsuka purrs happily, legs crossed and shoulders straight with energy.

She jolts slightly from the thick of her thoughts. "Ah, no," she answers with a beaming smile. With a touch of her toes, she swivels to face him, closing the notebook. "You haven't. You and Soubi, you mean?"

He nods enthusiastically. "Yeah," he continues. "His name is Cho."

"Oh? And what color is he?"

"Gray and white, in big patches. Soubi says he looks like a patchwork quilt." He can't help but laugh at the memory of the kitten strutting towards him the day before, working his awkward paws as fast as he could, lurching towards the stray strand of Soubi's hair as he sat painting on the floor. Unbidden, he launches into that story, unable to resist the swell of joy it gives him to do so.

Katsuko smiles knowingly through this. Soubi makes Ritsuka's eyes the brightest, most royal shade of violet at the slightest mention, be it unsettling or joyous. And when he finishes the story, mimicking the expression Soubi had wore as the kitten had trekked determinedly through the wet paint, she laughs and he smiles at the floor. She lets the pleasure of a good story well told settle low around them, and calls his name.

"Yes, _Sensei_?"

"How is Soubi? You tell me so many stories about him, but I don't know much about him. I'd like to know him a little bit better, if that's okay?"

Ritsuka blinks, the joy retreating into caution. "You really want to know, _Sensei_?"

She smiles gently. "Of course I do. If he's important to you, then he's important to me too. I'm here to take care of you."

The violet of his eyes turns slightly pink—something has hurt him in what she has said, but she cannot know that he is seeing now Soubi pulling him from his mother's limp arms as he kicks and screams furiously, bruises and hurts him, screams not to leave her behind, not to leave her all alone. She does not know the words with which Soubi had justified such an abduction that now sting with repetition.

'_She cannot take care of you, Ritsuka. She is only hurting you.'_

He hangs his head slightly, a weight of worry returning to his stance, but he obliges. "What would you like to know?"

"Well, I'd like to know a little about him, if that's okay?"

He shrugs. "Sure."

"How old is he?"

"He just recently turned 21." She can hear the withdrawal in his voice, strangely unaffected by the discussion of his indisputable favorite topic. Though she has not seen the inside corners of his life as this Soubi undoubtedly has, by the sheer amount he mentions him, either directly or with a shy flush, she can tell she needs to draw him back out. So, it is a moment before she registers the age and computes it with the romantic color of Ritsuka's face.

"Oh… really?" Trying not to upset him further, she covers her choke with a cough and takes a moment to recover. "And did you have a celebration together?"

Ritsuka toys nervously, distantly with the tip of his tail as he speaks, his head now taking on a familiar bend of discomfort. "Yes. His friend Kio came over and brought food and drinks for the both of them, and we had strawberry ice cream for dessert. Soubi covered it in so much chocolate it was hardly strawberry anymore, though." Here, Ritsuka seems to be gone back, hardly remembering Katsuko in the room.

"We played games after that. Kio was a little drunk by then, but he played, too. He taught me how to play poker and other card games. There was one I liked a lot, actually. Soubi called it 'Slap Jack.' He split the deck and gave one to each of us. Then we each put one card down at a time, and tried to be the first to slap our hands on the Jack." He smiles absently. "Kio was so slow by then. He always lost. And Soubi… he's much faster than I am, but I still beat him a few times. He got a little upset, even. He gets so competitive at games like that, but he never admits it, since he's usually so laid back."

"That's very nice," Katsuko-_sensei _says, breaking his reverie. "Everything else is going well, too?"

Ritsuka looks at her. "Well," he mutters, breaking the glance to turn slightly away, worrying at the matted tip of his tail. "Actually, _Sensei_, I've… I'm worried about him, at the same time."

"How's that?"

"Well, he's been hurt a lot, I think. And I don't think he's healed at all, even though he seems very happy at times."

"Ritsuka-_kun_," she asks. "Are you saying that you think he may have been abused, like you?"

He still doesn't meet her eye, but his heart swells in pain—the distant touch of Soubi sometimes lets him know that his brother has returned again, fully alive in the wounds in Soubi's heart and soul and ripping away again; but he also knows Seimei is not alone in creating them. There is so much to heal, and so many walls to crumble before he can reach them with any kind of remedy. He wants only to help him.

'…_She is only hurting you.'_

'_You mean, hurting me as my brother hurt _you_, Soubi? You're nothing but a hypocrite! A liar! Leave me_ alone!'

"Yes."


	5. five

The seed of affection he'd sewn in Soubi that morning fermented all day long, stretched over a canvas and gaining speed as the clock approached evening, when Ritsuka would stroll back into his world with his heart in his hand. He'd changed into a loose black sweater and apron, tying his hair up in a messy bun, and painted almost constantly since their goodbye kiss this morning. And in the silence, Soubi feels music as he smiles and waits for the door to swing open, his painting now only an empty reflex to pass the time. He licks his lips and they taste pleasantly of the strawberries he'd eaten for lunch.

Ritsuka will be proud of him—and happy. He hasn't smoked a cigarette all day. Of course, he'd passed the time thinking of things Ritsuka would be just as displeased to know, but at least he couldn't taste those on his mouth. And he is going to get kissed when he got home. There is simply no reason not to.

The sun waltzes slowly behind the horizon before the pitfall of feet make Soubi straighten and hearken towards the door with enthusiasm he couldn't dismiss. His veins run hot and bright—filling with youth he'd never really felt before. Sitting at the edge of his half-finished canvas, he watches the doorknob twist, then jump forward.

"Ritsuka," he says, forgetting completely the almost undignified eagerness to his voice, the blood that runs to his skin. He stands and goes to the door to meet him. The younger steps inside and shuts the door behind him without ever really looking up at him in return. His ears lie against the curve of his head, depressed, and that is the first signal that Soubi has that something is wrong.

"Ritsuka," he repeats, putting his hand on his head. There is less distance between them now, less to reach across to bridge the gap. "Welcome home. How was your day?" He does not bend to try and meet his eye.

"It was fine," he says quietly. Without pulling off his backpack, he leans towards Soubi and is quickly indulged. When Soubi finishes tangling his fingers in his hair and trapping him to his chest, he sighs and slumps against him in exhaustion.

"And therapy?"

"Sucked," Ritsuka answers honestly.

"Are you hungry?" He can feel the worry pining out from Soubi's skin wherever they touch, and his stomach clenches painfully from love and his own, acute worry. Without explaining why, he reaches up and clutches at his fighter's arms, seeking even more intense reassurance of something he cannot put into words.

He shakes his head.

"All right," Soubi murmurs to him. They stand still, wrapped in each other and bound by strings and lies and truth, until Ritsuka finally lifts his head to look Soubi in the eye.

"I'm sorry, Soubi," he says. "I know I'm acting weird… and you were in such a good mood. I'm sorry."

"There's nothing to be sorry about."

The brightness of his smile is not obvious—not shown in a garish display of teeth—but rather a faint glow, a light that gives his face another ounce of life, pulling him further and further from his lifeless past self. Ritsuka feels the earth shift and soften beneath him to see Soubi smile like this, face colored, mouth curving softly, and eyes soft and welcoming, like a blanket.

It's how he should have always been, Ritsuka knows. But it is not how he has previously been—riddled with holes and land mines which rip and ruin him from the inside, fragile and brutal at all the same time, grasping at something that has hurt and escaped him so many times. It is here, in the circle of his arms and lamp-glow of his worry, that Ritsuka wonders how his brother ever dared to cut him, to exchange the glow of love, however fragile and faint, for pain and agony and longing servitude. How he ever kept his heart and knees from buckling at the slivers of hope in Soubi's gaze at each command, hoping it will be to hold him or kiss him—or just to want him. He cannot fathom it.

Ritsuka swallows the awkward lump that he's created and one which Soubi's gentle expression only thickens. "How was your day?" he asks, attempting to regain his normal mood, all the while wondering if he should destroy this delightful mood just to heal him.

He knows that happiness sometimes hides pain, but Soubi is _so_ happy today, it almost hurts to feel.

Should he ruin that? Does he even have that right?

"It was lonely without you," he answers, and it is then that Ritsuka decides, no, he doesn't. And he lurches into the welcoming kiss he's sure Soubi has been storing since their goodbye.

Ritsuka threads his fingers behind Soubi's head, settling against his body as if it's the only place he belongs, and letting himself lose himself to the both of them. He can trust himself to Soubi for a while, he knows. It's when they reach that point of no return he always tugs away and breaks the music. And, as he kisses Soubi in return now, touching the taste of strawberry on his mouth with his tongue, it seems so unimportant next to Soubi's happiness.

Soubi never moans at this, never moans at much. He only huffs and shudders, as if his body were swallowing the weak sound and pinching it out of existence. Ritsuka cannot understand this. He holds the side of his jaw and they sway closer to the floor. At a moment's notice, he would sacrifice anything for Ritsuka, complete any task given with any degrading command, but he will not moan or cry. It's so strange.

_That's another thing that will change. He'll have his own heart, his own mind back, his voice back._

Ritsuka hardly notices the change of venue, when Soubi steers him with a nudge of the knee to the nearest bed—which is his own, incidentally—and lets Ritsuka flop comfortably on top of him. Without their weight on their feet, they can feel their bodies relax and collapse into one another and Ritsuka sighs into his mouth happily. Soubi stops to kiss the other, neglected parts of his face, between his ears, even touching the corners of his neck.

_But,_ a part of his mind echoes above the music that comes from Soubi's mouth and fingertips, _he cannot have his heart back through just a kiss. He's no frog, and I'm no princess._

Ritsuka gasps and takes Soubi's mouth back, trying to drown out the thought as a surprised sound of bending, resisting lust giving into a note of pleasure bursts from his fighter's mouth. He wrenches Ritsuka so close he cannot move. Ritsuka wonders how he does not go about breaking his arms, doing such things.

_You have to take him to therapy with you. You have to break down those walls he protects himself with, hides behind._

Ritsuka doesn't want that, and runs his tongue through Soubi's mouth like a whip.

It doesn't drown it out just yet. _You have to hurt him a little to help him more. You have to pull the bullet before it infects and kills him._

_Hurt him a little, help him more._

Ritsuka stops, and pants. He cannot deny that voice, and, seeing as he cannot drown it, burying it in the parts of Soubi he can touch and fill with pleasure, he has to stop and listen to it. He wonders, momentarily, as their lips part and he sits up, his hair mussed around his face, if that's how Seimei smothered the pain he'd caused. But he doesn't think he ever kissed Soubi. Otherwise, would he have gone through with it all?

"Ritsuka…?"

Soubi's voice is thick as nightfall with a new emotion that Ritsuka stops to examine, rolling the sound of his throat curling around his name around in his mind like a new toy. It takes a moment, but he finally clears the haze from his mind and sees Soubi for how he is now—lying beneath him, mouth pink, eyes waiting but anxious and so blue. And feels Soubi for the vulnerability beneath him, the painful swell that has come about from all this touching and kissing.

And then, a moment later, Soubi strangles that feeling and tries to sit up, pushing it all away without a reaction from Ritsuka.

"No, Soubi," he says softly, and pushes him back down.

_He's so happy now._ _I _can't_ ruin that_. _Not now._ _But in a little bit. For now, I'll just have to make him so happy he won't see it coming when I have to break him again._

He runs his fingers beneath his shirt, getting a feel for the color and shape of this new territory, and catches Soubi's stare, feeling it fill him with electricity. He looks almost terrified—but wanting—to see Ritsuka straddle him and trail his fingers towards his crotch.

"Soubi—I… I wish you were happier," he says, his eyes falling away for a moment. "Tell me what to do." He touches him, and he moans.

"Rit—suka—It's alright… you don't have to—"

The younger considers him for a moment, but grows impatient. "Fine," he mutters to himself. "If you aren't going to _tell_ me, I'll make it up." And with that, he unwinds the zipper of his pants with a flash of retaliation and sticks his hand inside. Soubi makes the most rewarding sound and lurches in a most acrobatic way.

---

Ritsuka stays with Soubi through that night, noticing with a smile that his fighter had no energy left to change out of his mussed clothes, only fell to the bed where Ritsuka had rendered him spent and felt the unimaginable urge to kiss him and never leave. So there he lies that night, curling around a pleased, but still damaged container of land mines and love, and vows to give him his heart back.

Even if that meant he has to hurt him now.


	6. six

"Ritsuka-_kun_, are your ears smaller?"

The mere subject of these words causes them to amplify exponentially as they slip from Yuiko's well-meaning mouth, coming to fill the entire room like a pack of loosed balloons—and of course, no one in the room can simply ignore loosed balloons. Ritsuka feels a furious blush rise from the bottom of his toes and his heart trips against his ribcage. It's all he can do not to snatch at this head and fold them over.

"No, Yuiko," he snaps, staring in determination at the inside of some book. "They're just the same size as yesterday. You just haven't noticed."

"No, no, Ritsuka-_kun_, I _do_ notice—and they look smaller!"

The weight of her innocent stare is quickly doubling, and doubling again, as her words catch more and more attention. Yayoi, who had simply raised his head at the music of her light voice—much in the way, Ritsuka imagines, he himself pricks at Soubi's rare laugh—now stares at ears in question instead, judging their size against an old mental image. Ritsuka snaps the connection by, with a slight growl of agitation, ducking his head to stand.

"They only look smaller," Ritsuka lies quickly, "because I've been growing taller lately."

It _is_ true that he's been growing lately—Yuiko now peers lovingly up at him, instead of down, over the bounce of her chest and wild, projectile circle of her jewelry as she pranced. Yayoi has yet to breach that mystical barrier of her height, and thus qualify himself for an authentic date, but, if Ritsuka could judge by the zealous gleam in his eyes, he will at any time.

But height does not necessarily make anyone's ears appear smaller. For a moment, he considers where he picked up this smooth, lying tongue. "I'm going to be as tall as Seimei, one day," he says, and a terrible conclusion pounces on him at that moment.

_Will I grow as vicious__as Seimei_? _Will I come to lie and hurt people?_

The teacher calls class to order, interrupting the congregation of friends gathered around Ritsuka's desk and sending each to their respective desks, where they will either doodle, yawn, or scribble notes to one another.

But today, Ritsuka gets lost halfway through a nervous-lined kitten and an oversized bell, when his thoughts turn to the gentle poison of his brother's smile, so thick in his memory he can still remember how his skin felt. He buries his eyes in the empty white of the page and he drifts. It seems that Soubi is not the only one with traps fashioned by Seimei lying in wait within him, for he feels a stab of pain when he remembers that smile—one he loves, and hates.

---

Soubi chuckles, and it blows past Ritsuka's ears like autumn wind, ruffling his hair. Ritsuka scrunches his face at the uncomfortable tickle and the trickle of electricity that comes from it. The fighter smiles against the back of his head a moment later. "Smaller? I suppose they are…" He explores this claim with his lips, kissing the back of the nearest feline ear, then remaining there with loaded purpose.

Ritsuka shivers again when Soubi laughs. "Ritsuka, you're bad," he murmurs.

Ritsuka twists his head to glare at him, but does not break away from the arms that keep him in his lap, the both of them reclining against the windowpanes of the sliding patio doors. "What do you mean by _that_?"

"Your mother would be furious if she knew why they were smaller," Soubi answers, smiling faintly past the rims of his glasses. "With you—and with me."

The younger gives a petulant expression. His mother never met Soubi—until the night he pried her off Ritsuka's battered body. It makes Ritsuka's heart break to remember.

"They are _not_ smaller, Soubi," he mutters in return. He's always so strange—jumping from lightness to heaviness in less than one breath, mixing love and murder in the same word, even. And this, making a joke with a cheerless punch line. It would piss him off, if he were not so comfortably kept in his embrace and if his stomach was not so comfortably full of burdock pasta. He turns around and clutches at his wrists, closed around him. "You're mistaken. What kind of way is it to measure with your mouth, anyway? You're probably wrong."

"Probably?" Soubi chuckles again. "Before you said they definitely were not smaller. What made you change your mind?" There it is, that curling tone of voice that reminds him of the devious curl of a cat on the prowl. There is a kiss on the back of his neck, which confirms that suspicion, and Ritsuka jimmies slightly away from it.

"I _am _sure."

"You don't sound it."

"Shut up, Soubi," he grumbles. But his fingertips still traces the willowy lines of his hands and his back remains safely cradled against Soubi's stomach. Barring physical violence, there's probably nothing that will convince him to break the hold, not a breathy voice on his neck, nor an annoying truth. It's too comforting after a day like this. Even if it was his inability to tear himself away from Soubi in the first place that created such controversy.

Both are simply irresistible.

Soubi tickles Ritsuka as he twitches his fingertips into his stomach. He's bending forward to brush a cheek against his, the cold kiss of the metal of his glass rims touching the bone beneath his eye. "Do you want to know what I think?"

Ritsuka scowls, and his stomach flops uncomfortably in his body. "No," he answers, but it's only half-true. As Soubi kisses the side of his mouth the best he can from the awkward angle, he wonders if Soubi's lying has decreased solely because it's slowly creeping over into him, a transfer made possible by the nights he spends, in increasing frequency, with him lying next or around him.

"Not if you're going to be gross," Ritsuka adds, mostly to sooth his own fear.

"I think," the fighter continues, "they're smaller because you're getting taller."

"It's not _funny, _Soubi!" Ritsuka snaps as his body shakes from the transferred laughter the elder gives then, fueled by the sharp splash of color spreading across his face. He turns to glare at his fighter, and for a moment, the temptation is to sulk away from the circle of his arms and brood contently somewhere else.

Soubi laughs again, and Ritsuka sits back down. He's quick to be indulged and reclaimed back into his arms.

"It's a little funny, isn't it?"

Ritsuka still scowls though—as much as he loves the weight of Soubi, truthful and carefree, wrapped around him. "If you've already lost your ears, it's funny, maybe," he mumbles. "But it isn't to me."

It is now that Ritsuka does not receive a rumble of laughter, or even a warm, gathering breath of contentment against the back of his ear. He waits for a clever twist of words, a hand under his shirt and invitation to shrink them further, even a shameful, lying response—but nothing comes. He can feel it, after a moment, when Soubi's hands clench tighter around his stomach, clutching at something painful in his mind.

_Someone is back_, comes a dreadful voice from within. _And they're tearing away at him again, you know. All the progress you make can still be unwound and burned to nothing. _

_The people who have hurt him still control him more than _you_, Ritsuka._

He can feel him remembering painful memories, things that have genuinely hurt him—not figments of this false attraction to pain he claims to harbor, all with a grimace not of pleasure. He cannot kiss it away, cannot chase it away with joy or ecstasy, or expect it to simply fade with time, like the orange glow of a spent cigarette. Ritsuka knows the only access to these pains is through more pain—opening a locked door with a violent password—but he cannot bring himself to do it just yet.

And when Ritsuka turns to look at him, Soubi will smother the expression of pain, much in the way he used to for Seimei, Ritsuka imagines, and he feels just as much in return.

He hasn't yet asked Soubi to come with him—and he won't just yet. He asks Soubi to show him what he's gotten accomplished for his junior review, which is in only a few days, and Soubi gladly untangles from him and shows him.


	7. seven

Ritsuka knows he's fallen into a dream when his cell phone trills happily and the inset light flashes that fateful red. Soubi doesn't need to call him even a fraction of the previous amount of before, not when he can simply lift his had from the color of his canvas and watch the younger absently toy with his tail across the room as he reads. Not when, with increasing availability these nights, all the further communications have to travel is from Soubi's mouth to the back of Ritsuka's bed-mussed head. No need to send dirty text messages when you can enact them, if in vain. Also, the touch of Soubi, drowsy and overworked after having just pulled an art all-nighter, a blistering, rough thing, where he had fallen asleep on Ritsuka's knee, is gone.

He lets it take him willingly. After all, it's a Friday night, and they have nowhere to be and no one to consider until Sunday at six. Falling asleep, without brushing his teeth or setting an alarm, can't hurt too much tonight. So when the dreamy phone rings, Ritsuka does not lurch back to the surface of his mind, but reaches forward and answers it.

"Hello?" He needn't ask—he knows it's going to be Soubi's voice, like a cello's music.

"Ritsuka."

"Soubi," he answers. He can't fight the tiniest sign of a smile. "Did you want something?" Ritsuka vaguely recalls it as a conversation before moving into Soubi's apartment, one of those blooming, multiplying days that are only bright and beautiful when he remembers them now. Soubi calling him, not demanding, not forced—but happy, mundane, wanting.

"I just wanted to see you, Ritsuka."

The word "Okay," is out of his mouth before he can remember how to say it. The corners of the world are blurred but pleasantly so, the colors blending like straying watercolors. He puts both hands on his cell phone, holding it closer, and flops backwards onto his bed, smiling at the ceiling in secrecy. He listens to Soubi's voice as it drifts off into strange, but comforting dream circles, talking about nothing, just lilting like music. And, for once, he falls into a dream in eagerness, surrendering himself completely to it.

His dreams have never been very welcome things—always twisting and hurtful and there to remind him of all the terrible things in his life. But to simple dream of talking to Soubi is a welcome change.

"Do you want to go to the park?" Ritsuka is pushing into the phone with a barely-contained joyfulness, when he hears the click of the door as the lock shifts, withdraws, and it swings wide. He hesitates and his voice, once echoing against the misty walls of his memory, realizes and dies low in his throat.

He'd locked that door.

Ritsuka begins to turn his head when his mother speaks, but flinches, and turns it back. She's full of venom, a gun without the safety. "Who are you talking to?" He stares blankly at the paisley pattern of the blanket, and fear paints them bright red and disorientating to the eye.

"No one," he lies. But he does not dare disconnect the line.

Though he knows his mother will soon catch the silky sound of Soubi's voice, calling tentatively across the silence for him, love undeniable in that tone, in that wanting plea, he won't do it. In a place that has suddenly has no corners to hide in, he won't separate himself from the small comfort that is Soubi's projected voice cradling the side of his face.

"Who is it?"

It sends chills down his spine to hear his mother's tone. It's empty, but just waiting for a spark to unleash the wild violence that waits at the bottom of her heart.

"…it's no one, Mother—"

She hits him as hard as she can, knocking him forward. His forehead hits the wall, his nose promptly filling with a protest of blood. The colors flicker and blur around him, his mouth goes dry and his tongue swells painfully in his mouth, and the cell phone falls away from him. He cannot see where it goes, sucked away into a darkness that jumps out from the paisley pattern and lashes at him again, screaming and accusing and slapping.

_Liar! I KNOW! I know what you _are_! You are not my Ritsuka! My Ritsuka would _never

_not with a disgusting _

_never!_

It is today, of all days, that she decides not to quit. The day she will not relent, either satisfied with his blood on her hands or finally repelled by it, and he will wake up at the sound of his mother shrieking, Soubi's palm hard against the side of her face. But for now, he is mired in the worst of it, miles away from long, willow arms around him and the promise of salvation.

The edges of his watercolor world now warp, jumping at each connection of angry flesh, turn copper, and bleed out into the dark. For a moment, all he is fear and pain, multiplying and echoing within his mind. But then, he is waking up, and he feels the pieces of himself click safely back into their places. He bubbles back up into existence and his throat and face is tight from crying, and warmed by Soubi's broad palms holding the sides of his head.

The color of Soubi's hair is dim through his bleary eyes, and the gleam off his glasses flashes a little too brightly, but he feels all that fall second to safety as he realizes where he is now. "Soubi," he sniffles out, reaching forward to grab at his clothing.

"Shh," comes the answer, and Soubi pulls him close. Ritsuka crawls gratefully into his lap, that warm, arching curve that has long served as a shell of comfort. He's growing slightly too lanky and tall to fit as comfortably beneath his chin and on his thighs as he used to, but he collapses into that familiar space like a marionette after a long night of dangling. And in a way, it had been.

Soubi chuckles against the top of his head, something Ritsuka is glad for. His laughter lightens the load. "Bad dream," he says.

Ritsuka is busily nuzzling his nose into the fighter's sternum, which seems to act as a magnet to the electronic remnants of his memory-turned-nightmare and scramble them pleasantly. The smell of distant oils, and the rich, natural fragrance of Soubi's worn clothes help wash it away as well. "It was good at the beginning," he says sleepily, and lifts his head from Soubi's chest. He only smiles gently down at him, patting his hair back into place.

"What time is it?"

"Almost nine." Soubi's mouth curls with a quirk. "Do you want to go back to sleep?"

Ritsuka half-smirks at him, and leans back a bit. "I'll sleep in a bed, thank you. You're too bony, Soubi."

"Oh, am I?" His eyelids fall in content over the blue-lavender of his eyes, a color that shifts as easily as his true emotion. When Ritsuka first attempts to break the circle of their embrace and stand, Soubi gives him a playful tug. "Prove it."

"No!" Ritsuka says, in a short, bright laugh. "I'm going to go read, so let me go."

For a moment, Soubi's soul seems to bend toward the command, a mistake of wording that slips from Ritsuka's work. Mostly, he loathes the steely, pleased color that floods Soubi's eyes and voice when he commands him, robbing them of their natural beauty and installing instead the idea of beauty someone else has (probably) beaten into him. There is a little flutter in his stomach, though, wondering just how true the claim of 'I'll do anything' really is.

He's tried to ask, to request, to want, rather than command, but sometimes he forgets all about Soubi's rough edges when he smiles at him so. They now adopt the same familiar color, flashing for a moment, and Ritsuka can see the recognition in his eyes, and then the resistance. He waits, still holding him, even when Ritsuka knows all the electricity in his body is telling him to let him go. He waits almost tortuously until Ritsuka remembers, "Please," and his arms almost collapse away.

"Thank you, Soubi."

The fighter blinks at him, as he backs away so they can look fully into each other's faces. "What for?"

Ritsuka surges back and kisses him, pushing him, twitching his mouth happily against Soubi's, until a little, curly sound of happiness answers him. He smiles as he pulls away, flattening his ears for a purr, and says, "For not letting me go."

It's just too cute to resist.

The color of his eyes turns again, this time twirling about into the deeper shades, which mean one thing. "If that's all, then…" He snatches Ritsuka back, happy to disobey this time, biting at his ears until Ristuka starts squealing and pushing and issuing ticklish commands.


	8. eight

"Soubi—I didn't know you could…" Ritsuka blinks and looks closer, drawn in tight.

At his side, he senses Soubi grinning, a little love-drunk. Half from the warm shower of complements and awe, half from the adorable way Ritsuka's tail twitches and writhes in wonder and excitement. Soubi's voice has never been this _exuberant_ at the edge. He wraps it like a secret it in a cool, low tone, but it's still there—joy bubbling beneath.

"Do you like it?"

"I'm not that pretty," he says, straying off-topic. Mostly the edge of Soubi's affection causes him to stray in a flush. "I shouldn't be pretty. That's girly."

"That's not completely true, Ritsuka. Boys can be beautiful—and girls can be handsome, too," the fighter explains. The mattress shifts beneath them as he shifts closer, studying the image over Ritsuka's shoulder. His instinct is to bite it, kiss it, but he knows he'll only get swatted away today. Ritsuka's in a very strict mood today, his brows tending to draw low and tight in concentration, as his brothers often did in battle.

"It depends on your appearance, really," he finishes. With an adorable innocence, Ritsuka traces the dried lines of ink on the paper. The thin, willowy movement of the hair, the slowing curl for the tufted ears, and the small, confident slash of a smile.

He's never been drawn before, and the result is exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. He's certainly never felt this, tight, winding sensation that makes him nervous and comforted all at once.

The eyes are smoky and colorful, thought only built of solid, inked hatches—he sees nothing of this light, this simmering emotion and delicacy when he looks in the mirror.

Maybe he's just looking in the wrong _one_…

He turns to Soubi and catches sight of that joy bubbling within, catching like sunlight on still water. He can't help but smile—and it unlocks a little, satisfying curl of his mouth in return. "Thank you," he says.

Thin lips pull further back, a grin without teeth, only the shifting blue of his eyes. With little regard to the delicate drawing in Ritsuka's hand, he wraps his arms around the younger all the way to his elbows and draws him back to his chest like he's a drawing a deep breath for the first time in a long time. He presses the side of his face to Ritsuka's head and squeezes. Almost until it's painful. Ritsuka only grins, and gasps a little at the pressure. He knows it's only Soubi's way of returning the praise when the words choose instead to pour from his fingers, his arms, his neck, his chin rather than his voice.

And for a moment, he allows him to be happy. He allows himself to wallow pleasantly in doing nothing but laying in his arms, because in a minute, he's going to remember that it's Sunday morning and that he's yet to ask Soubi about therapy on Wednesday. He does not yet ruin this happiness.

An emboldened Soubi reaches over for his sketchbook.

---

Ritsuka flattens his ears against his head that night—half because of the uncomfortable folds of his 'dressy' clothing, not yet conformed to his body, and half because he's probably the only one here still sporting such visible signals of virginity. Embarrassment far outweighs the fear of appearing falsely upset, grimacing in the corner in a restrictive dress shirt and tie. When he's not glancing in search of Soubi, or standing in front of one of his paintings and recalling the day or night it was made, he's fussing at his tie.

Red and vicious, it's curled around his neck like a python biding its time, waiting for the moment best suited for choking him to death. He picks at it with a sour face. Simply tugging at it wont' loosen it, but his fingers twitch and he anxiously twists his neck if he doesn't.

Perhaps the bite of a tie is worth it, though—to smile every time he catches someone raptly discussing a piece of Soubi's work and recall the way his hair fell around his face as he created each one, the unique way his eyes focused on each new image. So he fidgets, but he does not complain.

As reward for passing his junior exams, Soubi has been given a section of the school's main gallery for a showing, along with several other students. Kio's work is also displayed, and the two are conversing happily together near a mutual professor. They look cutely similar in dark blazers and light-colored trousers, something Kio probably intended, to his best friend's embarrassed dismay, by the half-impish tilt of his grin. Soubi gives him an unamused look as Kio reaches over and pretends to fuss over his appearance.

Kio's hair shines a low, lime-yellow, nearly overshadowed by the array of polished, silver earrings lining the shell of his ear. There are, however, a pair of blue gems dangling from the first hole, which glitter and dance as he energetically nods and laughs. He can hear his candy voice across the din, while Soubi's responding, low tone is lost to the pleasant buzz.

Ritsuka stands beside Soubi's fire portrait and watches him, too shy yet to claim the spot at his side so publicly. His eyes trail absently to his ears. Sometimes obscured by a wheaten trail of hair, he can see the piercing he punched himself. Twin silver butterfly studs gleam there.

Oh, how his hands had shook. And the reward afterwards—collapsing onto Soubi and clawing at his back, riding out the tremors of a pleasant trauma.

The memory is vivid, and it beckons more forth. Ritsuka keeps himself from falling away into them by walking back over to the table and picking up a bite of food, and reaching over for a cup of water. It nearly flies out of his hand and splatters across another visitor when Kio's hand claps down on his shoulder.

"Aoyagi_-kun_! You made it!" Ritsuka manages to put the water down—without spilling, miraculously—before Kio wraps him up in a brotherly hug. "And don't you look cute!"

He grins sheepishly. "I didn't want to dress up," he admits. "Soubi told me I should."

"And he's _right_, you know! You look very nice." He holds him at arms length, his sweet-flavored enthusiasm punctuated by the lollipop swinging about in his mouth. His eyes flash brightly behind his glasses, filling with a boundless energy. Ritsuka smiles slightly, knowing how similar he and Soubi are at first glance, and how deeply different they can be. "My, when did you get so tall? I only saw you a week ago, and you were not this tall! You're getting to look just like your brother—"

Kio stops, smirking sheepishly. The smile on Ritsuka's face has died. Softly, in subtle steps, but it is still gone. "I'm sorry, Ritsuka," he says quickly. His palms wave fluid back and forth, little flags of apology. "I didn't mean to."

"That's alright, Kio."

Immediately, that energy recollects and bursts back out. His grin is light and bright, like sunlight, and his voice dances again. "Ritsuka, why don't you come and stand with Soubi, _ne_? He misses you…" he half-sings, grinning cutely and patting his shoulder. "He's worried you're not having fun, either."

Ritsuka breaks his stare, which had been fixed on Soubi, not surprisingly, to glance up at Kio. "Why? Did he say something?"

"No," Kio drawls, pulling the lollipop from his mouth and conducting it like a baton, twirling it for dramatic effect. "But he hasn't stopped mentioning you to everyone. I can tell. Especially when it's that _obvious…_"

He almost squeaks in embarrassment, blood rushing to pool neatly in his face. "Mentioning me? What did he say?" Not that it could lessen the love he feels in the least, but Ritsuka is not naïve completely to how the outside world might look upon them in disdain. It's part of the reason he gazes from afar and channels his affection into Soubi's paintings, studying them much longer than anyone else.

"Oh, he doesn't give your name. He just says he's found his muse—he's so cute, but hopeless," Kio mutters, reaching over to pat his shoulder. It clutches only air, as Ritsuka is walking determinedly towards his fighter, clenching his fingers. Smiling to himself, he simply reassigns the lollipop to its dance between the right and left sides of his mouth and goes off to chat with the people observing his work.

Soubi is genuinely surprised to feel Ritsuka's hand slide into his, coming to stand silently, bravely at his side, unaffected—mostly—by the round gazes that fall upon him as the romantic implication finally sets in. He can only see Soubi's eyes, as blue as they ever were in this crisp light, fill again with a youth he's too young to have lost, and he smiles. And then, he introduces him to his professor.

---

After the party, Kio offers them a ride home, and a few lollipops coerce them into accepting. Of course, Soubi offers Ritsuka the front passenger seat, then climbs into the back like an obliging gentleman. Mostly, it earns him a knowing smirk from Kio, and Ritsuka sits in the front, his fingers twitching slightly.

Sunday night is gone.

Wednesday is coming.

When they get home, Ritsuka is tired from the glare of bright lights, the constant hum of voices, the jolt of socialization late into the night, and he stands at the foot of Soubi's bed as his fighter releases him from his tie. With a suffering little sigh, he calls Soubi wordlessly closer, and rests his forehead on his chest. "Are you okay?" he asks, undoing his own tie and draping them on the frame of the bed.

Ritsuka sighs again and just breathes in. Wednesday is coming—he feels somehow like this is the last vestige of a life he was never supposed to have. A borrowed movie, one that will inevitably end and need to be returned under punishment of stiff fines. Soubi is so sublimely happy, mumbling gently in the dark as they unwind from the day, filled by praise and reviews and accolades, comforting and comforted by Ritsuka. Why does the week have to turn and why does he have to ruin it all so soon?

He shrugs off his nice blue jeans and crawls into bed with Soubi in his dress shirt and socks.


	9. nine

Thankfully, the bounce of Yuiko's voice and love and Yayoi's overly-dramatic displays occupy Ritsuka for the next few days, robbing him of the chance to worry over his decision until they part at the gate. On Tuesday, the pressure welling up behind his heart grows too great to bear alone, worsened by the smile Soubi wears when they're all alone, and he invites them to stay for dinner.

Upon hearing this announcement, Soubi eagerly wrapped the apron around his waist. Ritsuka watched him with a faint smile as he scoured the room for a hair tie, holding his blonde locks in one hand like a horse's lead as he turned and turned over stones. He lost himself to the jumping and suffocating grip of Yuiko's embrace, the rich curl of Yayoi's storytelling voice, the warmth of food almost ready to eat filling every corner of the house. He allowed himself to not feel a jolt of worry every time he caught sight of Soubi grinning—not to wonder if such a thing could handle being torn at anymore.

He knew Soubi could not bear to look inside himself as he needed to in order to heal—he could not tear away the casings he'd put over his wounds, could not stand to rebuild the working of his heart and mind. Too much of it was caught, spilt, rusted onto Seimei, too much was stained, tied, and cluttered with his past. He was not strong enough to do such things. Ritsuka remembers him saying it himself, gazing past the tip of his cigarette into the wind, following the trail of smoke as it leapt away.

Soubi is a tangle of Seimei, orders, lies, truth, friends, enemies, blood, light, youth, secrets, and terrible, terrible wisdom about the world. And now, Ritsuka added his own entangling influence, hoping to drive all the hurtful traces from him. But to do so, to rebuild the fighter until he is free of it all, he will have to rip Seimei out.

The question is—will there be enough when his brother is completely removed?

Ritsuka walks out of school after successfully dodging Shinonome-_sensei_ during lunch. Almost cautiously, he pauses and glances over his shoulder. There is no accusation or anger in the school's blank stone face, no indignation, no pain turning to betrayal. But somehow, Ritsuka sees it there, sees it flickering in eyes too blue to stand that now come to mind. Smothering the tiny flicker of remorse about skipping out, he shoulders his backpack strap and turns right towards the bus stop.

He arrives a short while later at Soubi's school, standing at the back of the eerily vacant bus and tugging the stop cord. As soon as he steps off, embarrassment and nerves flatten his ears against his skull. His face burns slightly as he wishes vehemently that he'd remembered a hat or something. His tiny frame and dress immediately give away his age and he feels strange walking across the campus in a crowd as old, or even older, than Soubi.

But purpose drives him past the groups of students and the occasional odd glance or questioning double take, and up into the main building. Being alone makes this trip no easier. Not that it was easy, walking hand in hand with Soubi, obviously much younger and obviously _with_ him, to begin with. He circles up the staircase to the third floor to the painting studios.

He ducks past most of the open door, hoping to not run into Soubi. Instead, he peers about for a head of shorter blond hair and the telltale gleam of metallic ears.

Carefully, Ritsuka pokes his head into the room he'd most often be able to find Soubi, and hopes that Kio is trailing close to him as usual. Luckily, he is—but not too closely that it endangers Ritsuka's goal.

He bows his head shyly as a pair of students bustle out of the classroom, eagerly pawing at their cigarette packs. They are too busy flipping open lighters and comparing decorations to notice Ritsuka there, and he steps back for a moment. He watches them go, then peers back around the corner. The studio is rather full. Ritsuka knows by the intense concentration in the room, scattered empty cans, and loud music that work is due tomorrow. Soubi is rather diligent about his work, but he too sometimes works through the night, painting, pacing, chewing on the handle of his brush.

Ritsuka can only hope Soubi won't see him. He gives little thought to the fact his knuckles are white from gripping the doorframe as he scans the room.

"Aoyagi-_kun_!"

Ritsuka staggers at the sudden voice, his ears flattening further against his skull in fright. He whirls about to see Kio grinning gently at him, pulling a stick of candy from his mouth to speak more clearly. "How are you?" In his hand he clutches a fresh cup of coffee. "Come to visit Soubi?"

"Kio," Ritsuka breathes, putting a hand on his chest. His heart is thrumming just under his sternum. "You startled me."

"I'm sorry?" The blonde tilts his head cutely, licking his candy.

Ritsuka glances over his shoulder and steps toward Kio, quickly stopping him from drawing any closer towards the classroom. He fears that he won't be able to stop him from calling out to Soubi. And it was not him he came all this way to see. He takes the elder by the elbow and nudges him back—and for a moment wonders how he's come to be here. Only a year before, he would not have touched anyone voluntarily, let alone someone he knew—and now he's herding Kio away from the door to speak in secrecy.

"I have to talk to you about Soubi," he says.

Kio is obviously confused and surprised by this, but he graciously bows to the pressure on his elbow from Ritsuka's small hands. He even pulls the candy from his mouth, bestowing him his full attention. They stop a little ways away from the door, more safely out of earshot.

"What is it, Ritsuka-_kun_?"

Ritsuka stares hard at his feet. For all his boldness and bravery, the idea of gazing into Kio's bright eyes and darkening them with worry as he explains is too painful. Just as it has been painful, watching Soubi's strange new streak of happiness and wondering if it's authentic, wondering if it will weather this storm Ritsuka will drag him into. It causes him so much pain he barely slept the night before, watching over Soubi instead in the midnight glow of streetlamps outside their window.

He has a feeling Soubi won't want to share a bed for a while when they start pulling Seimei out of him.

"I'm going to take Soubi to therapy tonight with me. I haven't told him. I don't know what he'll do. My doctor says she'll talk to him and try to heal him," he admits. The explanation is easy enough, but it's imagining Soubi's heart being picked apart that makes his voice unsure and crooked. "He needs it. He needs to talk about it—but… I'm afraid of what might happen." He continues to stare at his feet and nervously toys with his fingers. "And I wanted to ask your opinion about it."

When Kio doesn't immediately answer, Ritsuka's nerves flush his face and he looks up. The artist is looking at him, face hitched in worry. "Ritsuka…" he says, blinking slowly. It's much more surprising when Kio sweeps forward and clutches him up in a fierce hug.

"Do it," he says. His voice, which tickles the spot on his neck usually reserved for Soubi's puff of laughter, is empty of its usual sugar. The solemnity in it almost frightens Ritsuka, but his arms around him reassure him that it is only a sign of seriousness, not despair. "If you can get him to do that—to help himself—then don't be afraid of it. He's always needed it."

Only now does Ritsuka tentatively return the embrace, and they separate. His stomach clenches and goes icy cold in worry as he steps back to see the full somber gleam in Kio's youthful face.

He probably bears a close resemblance to that, Ritsuka reminds himself.

Kio's hands rest on his shoulders and Ritsuka knows now they are also his hopes of Soubi's health and happiness, now coming to transfer completely to him. "If there's anyone that can help Soubi, it's you, Ritsuka-_kun_. Don't be afraid of it," he says. "He'll always love you, no matter what. I know he will."

Ritsuka doesn't realize he's gripping Kio's wrists as hard as he is until he winces slightly. "Sorry," he mutters.

"It's okay, Ritsuka."

His ears twitching slightly, Ritsuka again finds the scuffs on his sneakers the safest place to rest his gaze. "I'm just afraid that he'll go back to the way he used to be—hurt, unhappy—and he won't be able to get back."

Kio doesn't really have a reassurance for this, and he tries his best to smile and feed him a sweet nothing that will comfort him, rubbing his shoulder. Ritsuka thanks him for his help, and abruptly parts with him, now afraid of crossing paths with Soubi before he's absolutely ready.


	10. ten

There is nothing but coffee to drink at the apartment when Ritsuka arrives. Rather than aggravate his already jumping, lurching stomach, he settles instead for cold water from the sink and settles in at the kitchen table as if waiting out a bout of insomnia. Aside from the sunlight glaring in through the windows, it would fit perfectly. Bare toes curled and feet cradled neatly on the chair, knees bent tight and arms wrapped around them to reach for his drink. He watches the water slosh as he tilts the ceramic mug cautiously, gently in an awkward little circle.

Memories of his mother lurch up from an already-worried stomach—he vaguely remembers that it used to be safe to wander downstairs during the night. Full access to memory of his 'former self' is still limited, but slowly returning. With a careful hand, the film can be wiped away to reveal a hazy but visible picture. He remembers his mother's fingertips, doling and pinching cards with a calm evenness he's never seen again, playing away her sleeplessness.

There are no cards in Soubi's apartment, so Ritsuka settles for drinking water to settle his nerves. He makes three trips to the sink for refills before Soubi's key jangle in the lock and then give up, sounding almost confused when there is no obstruction to unlock. Ritsuka's nose scrunches in a half-hearted laugh as mild confusion flashes across Soubi's face. He stares at the knob as he steps inside as if it had just told a puzzling and unamusing riddle, then Ritsuka stands. His eyes lift up and sight on him. Blue turns lovingly bright, the shape of his eyes coming to mimic the shape of his glasses.

"Ritsuka," he says, again in that voice that makes Ritsuka's throat tighten for reasons he cannot yet articulate. Then a little confusion seeps back in. "Don't you have therapy tonight? It's Wednesday."

Then he steps inside, tugging the key from the lock and pressing it shut behind him. He begins the mundane process of pulling off his jacket and dropping his messenger bag stuffed with brushes and half-emptied jars of gesso and paint. Quietly joyful tales of the day lift into the air, Soubi assuming Ritsuka had decided to forgo therapy that night, as he had done on occasion, and launched headfirst into a pleasant evening spent together. Talking, discussing, and sitting together before the television or one of Soubi's works in progress.

Every precious detail of Soubi's day is lost to Ritsuka, who watches from the kitchen table and listens, but does not hear.

He's paralyzed by fear, and entranced by Soubi. Neither allows him to rise from the table to take Soubi by the elbow and ask the question that's been nagging him. Worrying him—ruining him, almost.

He falls for a moment into the memory of sitting with Soubi in front of his canvas. The kitchen light is on, distant like fog, but they huddle beneath a spotlight Soubi had wheeled into the living room, skinny metal neck almost stooped in curiosity. Soubi has his hair pulled back, but stubborn streaks fall along his face, and he fiddles with one with his mouth as he stares at the canvas. His eyes read the mistakes and his mind churns, waiting for answers to rise out of his belly. His work clothing, a thin white shirt, gray sweatpants, are covered in paint and charcoal smudges. His fingertips match, and Ritsuka can see flashes of white and colors on them as he gestures, pointing out things. Ritsuka is sitting on the floor beside him, listening, observing. Then Soubi asks his opinion and he gives it and it's bliss. For a moment, there is nothing wrong in their worlds, aside from the amount light falling on Soubi's painted figures and the blending of a few colors.

Then he's aware of Soubi stopping in front of the table, blinking at him. "Ritsuka? Are you okay?"

He blinks in return, and he feels like they are an odd pair, eyes moving like fluttering blinds to each other. In a moment, his composure returns enough to speak. "I'm fine," he says.

But he can see the disbelief begin to slowly grow in Soubi's eyes. It's soft and glowing, but Ritsuka still regrets it. He feels worthless, robbing Soubi of this happiness he so fully deserves by making him worry.

But it has to be done, he tells himself once again.

"Aren't you going to therapy tonight? Or do you want to go dinner, instead?" Soubi smiles gently and bends forward to kiss him, hoping to push away his worry by brightening Ritsuka's face. It's still there despite all his attempts when they part. Soubi doesn't withdraw to their natural distance, but instead remains close, breathing on his lips that still can feel him.

"Ritsuka?"

He has to look at the table when he asks, "I was wondering if you could come with me this time." He can't bring himself to say his name. It could unleash everything and bear all before he's ready to invoke his name, bring to the front a flood of love and pain so powerful it bends the foundations of his mind. So he looks at the half-empty mug of water.

Soubi does not prod at this vague answer, nor the fact that even if they were to be in the car in five minutes, they would still be over half an hour late for his scheduled time—and Ritsuka is either punctual to the number, or does not go at all. He just lets their hands come together for a moment, as Ritsuka almost wordlessly stands and they go to the door. Soubi grabs his coat with one hand, Ritsuka pulls the keys off the counter, while the other hands remained firmly linked.

Maybe Soubi doesn't know the details, the exact reasons for Ritsuka's distant, pained look barely concealed by an even color, but he will follow him wherever he needs him to go. The most Ritsuka allows him to stray from his grip is to crawl into the car, and even then it is only to start the car and then his willowy fingers are his again.

---

Soubi knows the roads to Katsuko-_sensei_'s office as well as any other route in his life. The loss of function—and circulation, with Ritsuka's ever increasingly insecure grip—in his hand doesn't hinder him at all. Tokyo's glimmering lights seem harsh and artificial against the darkening skies. The fact that Ritsuka can do nothing but stare at them with upset eyes doesn't help, his fingers worrying at Soubi's knuckles.

A short distance from their destination, Soubi again turns to look at Ritsuka. His gaze is small and sideways, but formed only out of comfort. "Ritsuka."

The frayed tips of the younger's ears twitch in response, but he can see the muscles in his jaw tightening as he resists the urge to turn and face him. Even the mumbled, "Hm?" of confirmation is laced with tension.

Soubi pulls up to an intersection and pulls Ritsuka's to his mouth. He kisses the back of it in much the same manner he'd done the first day they'd met. Ritsuka's mind floods with the damp, crisp smell of autumnal leaves coating the world, the saline in his mouth, the soft texture of the muffs around Soubi's sleeves, wrapped around his face. And—despite himself—he feels his body slowly unclench and his eyes turn to Soubi.

For a moment, his painful plan is forgotten. Soubi smiles with as much light as he can muster and Ritsuka feels his thumb run along his pulse. "You'll be alright," he says, even though the problem has not been spoken, and Soubi knows he doesn't know the full story.

And for that, Ritsuka is grateful beyond compare.

They are still joined at the hand when Ritsuka pulls him from the car and up to the office. Without having to be asked, without one syllable of discussion, Soubi knows to park the car where he normally would issue a tender word of parting for the hour, knows to follow when he normally would leave. The weather is turning, signaling the passage of another full year—two since that first encounter between fighter and sacrifice.

That's another thing Ritsuka latches onto to avoid the present—they haven't battled for nearly a year. The wound in Soubi's hand is a distant and ugly scar, but no nearer than that.

They're at Katsuko's door before Ritsuka registers it. Instinctively, as if tensing for a hard blow, he clutches Soubi's wrist in both hands, cheek pressed against his shoulder. Soubi doesn't look down at him—for he's too busy staring at the figure sitting quietly in the bench just outside the door bearing Katsuko's name.

"Kio?"

Ritsuka looks up, and sure enough, spots the lime-yellow of Kio's hair and telltale spark of his jewelry beneath the lights. Soubi's friend stands up from his seat and smiles half-crookedly, his warmth a little muddled with concern.

"Hi, Sou-chan," he greets, the cute bounce of his voice more burdened than usual. "Rit-chan."

Here is where Soubi begins to piece things together, and Ritsuka feels the former gentle willow bend of his hand tense until it is again steeled and whiplike, almost as if poised for a coming attack. _And in a way_, Ritsuka thinks as his necks almost feels too weak to support his head, _it almost is._

He looks down at Ritsuka, and his eyes do not match the roundness of glasses out of a spark of joy, but curiosity and a little flame of worry—fear. Their faces are not as far apart as they were two years ago, but somehow Ritsuka feels that distance returning as Soubi retracts behind a wall for protection.

He has to break that thing down.

"Soubi—"

Katsuko-_sensei_ opens the door and smiles gently. "Agatsuma-san?"

It's then that Soubi understands. Ritsuka watches the round of his eyes go flat, but not before a genuine flash of fear and pain goes through them and stabs Ritsuka's at chest. His voice his half-there when he speaks. He runs his eyes along his chin, his long, thin lips, the visible indentation where his glasses have rested for too long on the bridge of his nose, hoping that it will drive away this distant, clouded look of defense. "Please, Soubi," he says. "I'm only doing this because I want you to be happy. For yourself. Not because of me."

Soubi looks down at him again. He still seems far away, but he's listening. Ritsuka tightens his grip. "For yourself, Soubi." He has to swallow a thick lump in his throat before he can continue. "I don't want to let my brother or me control you anymore."

"That's what I wish," he says. Ritsuka only half-believes it now—he can't _afford_to believe that's true, or his plan will crumble.

"No… I'm not going to let you do this to yourself anymore."

The color of Soubi's eyes turns amused, but hurt. "Is that an order?"

Ritsuka looks away.

"No, it's not," is the emphatic answer, punctuated by his fingertips trying to rub away the tension in his palm. "It's your choice. I only want you to be happy."

Soubi won't say he is happy with a pair of foreign eyes resting on him, and not even with Kio's familiar gaze. He wont' say anything, but looks up towards his sole friend in the world, seeking some sort of silent source of comfort, of direction.

Kio's eyes and words tell him what he's always known he'd answer in situations like this. "You know you need _something_ Soubi. You know that." And then, the sweetness remaining is gone, replaced by firm advice. "Don't leave it all up to Ritsuka."

Ritsuka is staring at the ground. He feels Soubi's eyes stroke his bowed head once, and the steel in his grip flexes once, then dissipates. He pulls away from Ritsuka and steps inside the room. Kio is there to fall into place, snatching up Ritsuka's hand as the door shuts and the sound splits his head like thunder.

"You did something _good_, Ritsuka. Don't worry."

* * *

A/N: Just one or two more chapters before the end of this story, and I think we'll be due for another story, a little more Soubi-centric this time. Thanks for all your lovely reviews and interest in this story. 


	11. eleven

Despite the warmth of Kio's hand, faithfully and happily gripping his, gently swinging it back and forth between them as they sit in the stairwell, his mind wanders down old, thorny paths. Probably opposite the effect Soubi's friend wanted—and Ritsuka's friend, too, he realizes with a grateful but distant swell in his chest. The gentle, rocking motion meant to soothe instead unlocks an old door to an unwanted guest. Gentle, wandering words also designed to calm Ritsuka fade off into the distance as the nightmares he's been avoiding come nipping at him again.

He's been too busy secretly observing Soubi to sleep. Measuring the time he spends standing in the bathroom, idly staring into a corner with his wet hair hanging around him like soaked wheat—crawling into his bed when he was sure to be most sleepy and unaware and watching his eyes dream beneath his lids, conjecturing of what he saw. Killing two birds with one stone. He can't dream of the terrible things that have happened and have yet to happen if he's awake.

They come back with all the true viciousness of avoided memories angry to have been ignored.

* * *

He enters the fray where his mother's well-meaning and frantic violence reached a dark and fevered pitch, his nose filling with his own blood and his mouth with stunned saliva, his tongue swelling with pain and shock against his teeth. His mind is emptied though, not even bothered by the curl of concern in Soubi's questioning call that he can still hear coming from the phone. That's long been knocked away, fallen somewhere near but out of reach. As soon as he lifts his head to look for it, she smothers the motion with another slap, sometimes with the very passionate tips of her fingernails.

Black spots tumble around Ritsuka's vision as if someone were turning a glass case of black beads and watching them clatter in a useless circle. Through the overwhelming sensation of a bloody nose and a rattled mind and a betrayed heart, he doesn't realize he's the half-empty case being turned around. Just to see the pieces of him clatter around. _She should know_, comes the misty thought,_ that I'm already in pieces. She's made them herself. _

Pain worse than he's known in a long time takes its usual course in times like this. Ritsuka would like to say that he is brave enough to look into his mother's animal-crazed eyes and resist all instinct to love. To recognize abuse for the white-hot burn it leaves on all layers of his heart and mind and avoid it. He sees not rage and wrong burning in the frightening brown of her blood-shot eyes, but instead weakness, fear.

So he drinks down as much of the blood off his lips as he can, attempting to minimize the mess made this time, and sets his teeth, preparing to weather out this fresh bout of love. Pain becomes sleep here. Long nights unable to sleep properly lately has drained his body and his mind translates each bitter blow as drowsiness.

Every knuckle burst open against the back of head manifests a loving stroke, every shriek of outrage evens out into a remembrance of a lullaby she used to sing before the death of Seimei had robbed her gentle bird's voice.

"_You're not my Ritsuka! Give him _back_!"_

She is screaming when he falls away from consciousness.

His mind blinks and he is rattled away from darkness what seems a moment later by the shrill noise of his mother's distress call. His eyelids flash open on the stain of blood on his wall. They quickly remind him how heavy and puffy they are by shuddering and sinking low again. Stifled tears of agony and terror have ruined them, and still paint his vision filmy and out of focus. No one will recognize it as a minor concussion—induced by a book slapped against his head with all the motherly force she could muster—until Soubi's concerned looks and insistence finally drives Ritsuka to the doctor.

But now it is simply pain, and Ritsuka has dealt with that before.

He manages to glimpse the expression on Soubi's face as her head tilts up towards him, obviously startled by his presence, and the abusive white of her palm reels backwards, prepared to dispatch him on the same, furious whim. To remember it today still punctures something in him—eyes robbed of all their happy shape, thin, dark—almost muddled blue-black, lips pushed together so tightly Ritsuka could almost feel the spells of needles and death as if they were trying to claw out of his mouth instead. Behind those lips, he knows they are ready and Soubi would speak them without hesitation.

Instead, he raises his hand. They always been one part artistry and one part savagery, and he slams her into the ground with the latter. Her head snaps to the side, her lips weakly curling back in a grimace, before her body falls to the floor. The cloud of her dark hair and dark dress billows out around her like a stricken spider on the floor—a black blur to Ritsuka, who has begun to cry through the haze.

He gasps a few useless mouthfuls before he chokes out, "Sou—bi… _don't._" Somehow his voice cannot recognize the deed has already been done. Time has recorded it and will not simply turn the other cheek and cleanse it. That's what Soubi's hands on his face seem to remind him when he comes to him.

Long, spindly fingers cup beneath the angle of his jaw and gently maneuver his head until he's blinking dazedly up at him. Ritsuka can't understand why he looks so fuzzy now, so close, when he could see the murderous impulse so clearly from across the room—until he remembers he's sobbing.

Soubi touches Ritsuka's bleeding nose and sparks fill his head, and he suddenly doesn't have any body. And certainly no arms to keep him half-up on the bed.

Soubi steadies him. Without the support, his head rolls bonelessly forward and rests against the fighter's shoulder. He rests there for a few moments as he waits for all of it to pass. The weakness, the sobbing, the pain, the thin trickles of blood he can still periodically reasserting themselves and dribbling onto his lip. Soubi holding him, being there. When it doesn't within a few minutes, he forces back a gasp and moves his boneless arms to push at him.

"Mother," he says, pushing at Soubi.

"Ritsuka." Soubi says it like a counterbalance, trying to capture his attention.

"_Don't_," Ritsuka tries to growl, but it comes out more like a pained gurgle as the exertion invites back the sparks behind his eyes and the weakness. He puts his hands weakly on Soubi's upper arm and pushes. The tendons and muscles of his arm react like warm taffy, attempting to keep shape for a moment before slowly bending into submission. Gritting his teeth, he pushes his head off Soubi's shoulder again to look at his mother's stricken form.

"Don't, Soubi," he mumbles weakly. "Mother—"

"No," he says suddenly, and Ritsuka blinks dumbly at him for a moment. His face finally comes into focus now, through the blur of tears he's beginning to control. Spells of hatred still wait within him, eager to be spoken and given life, but not towards Ritsuka. Fury at his mother and concern for Ritsuka mix together like oil and water on his face, each eager to overwhelm the other.

Ritsuka winces and looks to his mother's collapsed form. Somehow, the expression on his fighter's face is too much to handle. Too much of a stirring hand in his mind, which is already disjointed and detached from itself. It seems like days since he was sitting on his bed, simply talking to Soubi. Now he's here and keeping him from his mother's prone form. Ritsuka's entire world seems cloudy and strange—the concussion makes sure of that, and the color of Soubi's eyes, love and wrath in the same breath, as they had always been, doesn't help any.

"No," he repeats, when Ritsuka again focuses on his mother. "She's not going to touch you ever again, Ritsuka." He takes one hand to cup his face and anchor it towards his.

Ritsuka doesn't know it's not a philosophical discussion or a poignant wish, but an enforceable fact until Soubi begins to wrap his arms around and mumble warm, low somethings to him. He doesn't know its an intervention of the most primal sort as he settles sleepily into the curves and planes of Soubi's cradling arms. Not until Soubi picks him completely off the bed and his bare toes are dangling. He moves to wrap his legs around him for added support when the realization finally moves past his exhaustion and pain.

He tenses and draws back. Needles and death are gone from Soubi's eyes—love has won out, but it's still stained. "Soubi—" he says, and then all the truth rushes at him. "No, Soubi—she doesn't know what she's doing. I have to stay with her. She'll be so _afraid_."

Soubi simply looks away and tightens his hold around Ritsuka's tiny weight. He turns around, robbing Ritsuka of any view of his mother for a brief, terrifying moment, and begins walking towards the door.

"Soubi, don't," Ritsuka says again, and he moves his arms from where he'd buried them in the honey-colored blanket of Soubi's hair and sets them on his shoulders. He pushes, but it's too late. The embrace he'd given Soubi had also given him the chance to take him in his arms fully—and Soubi is much stronger than Ritsuka will be for years. Panic begins to set in on him.

"_Soubi_."He can feel his voice constricting, growing louder and higher at a rate that's alarming in itself. "Put me down. I'm staying with my mother."

For a moment, Soubi's mouth twitches as he gazes up into Ritsuka's eyes. Love buckles a little, flickering like a candle that's been placed to close to a cracked window, with dog-like obedience trying to extinguish it. Ritsuka watches the decision to obey or disobey torment him for a moment, and then his mouth forms a solid, straight line and he chooses.

He puts his arms more tightly around Ritsuka and pins him hard to his chest. "No," he says again, and that's all the discussion he'll have.

Ritsuka remembers pounding on Soubi first, flat-handed—his mother's preferred mode of attack—then with full fists, gritted teeth. He knows he'd sworn never to use violence, but it hadn't been violence. It'd been fear, overwhelming fear and guilt taking over, turning him into a doe kicking beneath the jaws of a predator, not intending harm but unable to resist it.

He'd screamed and screamed—told Soubi he hated him, even, in a fit of exhausted desperation—but Soubi had taken him in his arms and bore him silently, bruised and worried and tired and wounded in his own way.

_I won't put him down, either,_Ritsuka thinks to himself, while holding Kio's hand and listening intently for the sound of screaming from Katsuko-_sensei's_ room, ready should it come.


	12. twelve

Katsuko-_sensei_ calls him in before the hour is up. He'd been leaning into Kio's shoulder and the welcoming fabric of his baggy coat, drowsy with stress and worry. Only when Soubi's friend gently nudged him did he startle from his half-dreams and turn, squinting up into the bright fluorescent lights lining the hallway just over Kio's shoulder. Katsuko-_sensei_ clutches a clipboard Ritsuka has seen hundreds of times, but her eyes are as cautiously gentle.

The expression is familiar—the careful and measured affection she'd employed when a young, frail Ritsuka first came to her office, hiding his lack of identity behind his rich black hair and big, expressive ears. The implications of how that reflects Soubi's butterfly-fragile heart both confuse and encourage him. He sits up abruptly and absently clenches Kio's arm.

"Ritsuka-_kun_?" she asks, pressing the board to her chest.

"Yes?"

"Would you like to come in?"

Ritsuka's only answer is his anxious struggle to his feet—leaden and numb after such an agonizing wait—and the near sprint he makes to her. His breath runs thin across his lips as he attempts to level his tilting vision, which makes the walls and floors seem to shift like water around and beneath him. The intense nausea of love drives him to follow her as she takes his hand, realizing how unstable he seemed to be on his legs this night. He swallows around a lump in his throat.

Not until he sees Soubi's long limbs sitting uncomfortably on the small couch does he stop imagining him instead lying on the floor, bleeding from wounds that have finally jumped from emotional to physical and killed him. He worries that pulling them to the surface will break whatever protective casings that have grown around them and their poison will leak irrevocably. He worries that Soubi will buy cigarettes tonight and smoke them alone. He worries he'll burn himself again with them, trying to chase all the weakness from his body with a challenge of pain. Katusko's hand squeezes his, and then she sits down in the chair at her desk.

Soubi sits on the couch, on his nose, lips, and the thin rims of his glasses visible past the gold wheat of his hair. His knees were bent, feet flat on the floor, elbows on his knees, neck extended, and lips pressed thinly together. Every muscle available to the eye tense and made ready. Ritsuka would not be surprised if his tongue were moving behind his teeth as well, licking nervously and forming syllables to spells. He is ready for attack, and to be attacked. And in a way, he _is_ under attack.

Ritsuka's heart cracks again.

_No_, his mind immediately interrupts, quick to combat the dangerous sensation of pity and fear. He's long indulged Soubi's dangerous imbalances because of those two emotions, like ignoring a cavity until it had rotten the tooth away.

_No, it's not an attack. It's_change_—Soubi is afraid of changing. And so was I. That's all it is. _

He takes a seat next to his fighter on the couch, not taking his eyes off him. For a moment, Soubi refuses to look him the eye. Instead, he seems intent on burning a hole in the carpet with the words of power barely contained in his mouth._None of this can be easy for him_, Ritsuka thinks. So, when he bows his head for a moment, he understands why he doesn't turn to look at him and instead turns his gaze to his patient counselor.

She begins talking to both of them about her general concerns, but they are soft words. Words designed only as harshly truthful as the patient can handle. Ritsuka is less afraid, has been braced by years of this painful healing process, but Soubi is paralyzed by it. The words are thus partly truthful and frightening, but partly sugarcoated.

She tells him that Soubi has been exceptionally truthful for his first session, and she sees potential for a lot of progress. Ritsuka's heart swells, but his mind paces around the idea with more caution.

She talks about issues of betrayal and insecurity without telling any stories. Ritsuka knows that the details are privileged—_private_—and he'll only know them when Soubi is ready to hear them spoken out loud again. God knows when that time will come, but Ritsuka wills himself a patience no child his age should yet need. For now, he'll know vaguely what lines not to cross, he'll see the wounds in Soubi's heart like a white object in a dark room—whole, but murky and under-defined.

It's not until Ritsuka begins asking Katsuko-_sensei_ if Soubi will be able to make something close to recovery that he feels his hand slip into his and pull tight. Ritsuka glances over to him and he's turned his head closer to him, though his eyes remain locked safely with the floor.

Ritsuka rubs the pad of his thumb over the mountains and valleys of Soubi's knuckles, welling with a relief he's unable to hold back entirely.

* * *

There are no cigarettes tonight.

Kio lingers in the kitchen and the living room—where there are no canvases being worked on, no paint trays scattered about, splashes of color—like a benevolent ghost for as long as he can. He follows them home just to offer support for as long as he can. The dirty dishes call him first, and then the empty shelves draw him to the nearby convenience store. He returns with green plastic bags weighed down with boxed _nabe_ ingredients and a favorite brand of beer, a silent expression that Kio has just as little idea of how to handle the situation as any of them, despite the long-suffering grin plastered on his face, shining as bright as any of his piercings.

Ritsuka is glad for him tonight—the color of his eyes and the greenish tint to his bleached hair are a welcome island in a life that is all about the misty blue of Soubi's eyes and thoughts. His voice is a loud, uneven lullaby to his worries for a moment. Not even Soubi, who still avoids the awkward eye contact with his Sacrifice at the moment, can resist a faint hint of amusement in his presence.

Kio's light and singing voice—authentic tonight or not—draws Ritsuka in with stories from college about he and Soubi. The fighter slips off politely to shower and leaves Kio and Ritsuka seated at the table. Unable to resist another moment, Kio nudges an open can of alcohol towards Ritsuka with a mischievous grin.

Ritsuka just tilts his head at him and smiles tiredly. "_Kio…_"

"You know, Ritsuka, if you're not more mature than anyone I know who _can_ drink, I'll—I'll pierce my tongue," he says, nudging it again, more forcefully. "Go on, just see if you like it. You need to unwind a little, too!"

"Isn't your tongue _already_ pierced?" he asks, nodding towards the glistening silver along his ears.

The artist grins around his own drink, denying and confirming with the same expression. Ritsuka sighs, and cautiously mimics the motion, stopping to smell the liquid beforehand. He flattens his ears and coughs, pulling it away. Kio laughs.

In the course of the night, given all the more weight by the incident before, Kio ends up drinking himself into a friendly puddle, seeing how Soubi would let his share go to waste, only politely waving it away. And Ritsuka, after a few bitter sips of experimentation, only grimaces at the offer, ears twitching. Ritsuka gathers up a few pillows and trails behind as Soubi guides him into his room.

He collapses bonelessly into Soubi's bed before any special preparations can be made and unapologetically smells the sheets for his friend's scent. Ritsuka sees the telltale signs of laughter that show only in his posture, the motions of his hands, the flexing of his fingers. The fighter then turns and heads silently to Ritsuka's room, to the bed which has seen less and less traffic as Ritsuka became more and more attached to Soubi's.

He attempts to lift Kio's heavy head to nudge a pillow beneath it, but ends up settling for pressing it into his arms. The artist mumbles happily, wraps around it, and promptly falls off into sleep.

Ritsuka pats him on the arm as he turns to leave the room, grateful all he's done with just a bag of late night groceries.

When he walks into his own room, it feels slightly foreign. Daylight paints it more familiar, casting light over the color of his books and the paintings he hung the walls, but night usually whisked him over to Soubi's and the image is unfamiliar for a moment in the dark. Soubi is already stripped down to his loose pajama pants, hair half pulled back and glasses hanging loosely from a few fingers. Ritsuka wonders if he knows how he's mimicking that stance in Katsuko's office.

He stands at the doorway for a moment, just observing. Soubi just stares with dedication at the carpet washed in faint moonlight and brighter city light, so he walks over to his dresser tucked in the closet. He shrugs himself out of his long sleeve shirt and toes off his socks. Soubi remains quiet through it all, and doesn't say a single thing even when Ritsuka comes to stand right in front of him, his bare toes intruding on his view of the carpet.

"Soubi," Ritsuka says, hoping to draw his gaze up. He toys nervously with his fingers, and Soubi seems to shy away from it.

Then, he swallows around that same lump—a lump that reminds him with a little laugh that's unsure its ironic or just amusing—and tells him, "I love you."

He doesn't do it to entrance him into a bond, or to win fights, but because he simply wants Soubi to look at him and let him know he can still do something _good_ for him.

Soubi's head lifts, and Ritsuka smiles in relief.

And for the first time, Soubi doesn't repeat it as Seimei once ordered him—he decides to pull Ritsuka down at his side and tell him about his past. Only one story for the night though, because--as concerned as he is—Ritsuka yawns as he leans against his shoulder. It's too cute for Soubi to resist.


End file.
